I was watching the Simpsons before they were The Simpsons. I have hazy memories of those crude little shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, and I remember when the family got its own half-hour and became an instant hit.
But the show has long worn out its welcome, and even though it's just brought back an iconic character who was sidelined for being “problematic,” it can’t be saved.
If you haven’t heard, Apu is back on The Simpsons, making his triumphant return with an Indian voice actor behind the microphone. For years, the character was simply gone or, at best, a rarely seen background character.
The campaign against Apu had simmered for a long time, with critics claiming he reinforced racial stereotypes. It picked up steam in 2017, when Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu released The Problem With Apu, a documentary arguing that the character was built on those stereotypes. Suddenly, a white actor voicing an Indian character, something nobody seemed to mind for nearly 30 years, became a scandal.
Hank Azaria folded. He apologized and stopped voicing Apu in January 2020. He even said part of him felt he should personally apologize to every Indian person in the country. Azaria argued the character was created with good intentions but said the show was part of structural racism, and that as a white kid from Queens he hadn't recognized the advantages he had.
Can you hear me rolling my eyes?
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Simpsons creator Matt Groening eventually got on board, too. In February 2021, he told the BBC that change was needed, after the show had first tried to laugh off the criticism. He added that bigotry and racism are still serious problems and that pushing for more equality and representation is good.
Nobody is arguing for bigotry. But this was a ridiculously oversensitive overcorrection, and it didn't stop with Apu. The show also recast black characters who had been voiced by white actors. That ignores how the show has always worked. Most Simpsons voice actors play a whole roster of characters. Azaria himself voiced Moe, Chief Wiggum, and Comic Book Guy, among others.
And now, after all that hand-wringing, Apu is back.
“The Simpsons” has cast Sunil Malhotra (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Legend of Korra”) as the new voice of Apu, taking over for Hank Azaria: • Malhotra made his debut in Sunday night’s episode, “The Revengening,” marking the first time Apu has spoken in nearly a decade • Apu and the Nahasapeemapetilon family will once again be seen (and heard) on “The Simpsons” moving forward https://t.co/Ov5L02Wn9H
— Variety (@Variety) October 19, 2026
Apparently, it took the show nine years to find an Indian voice actor. Nine years! How bizarre is that? The writers could have kept him and kept Azaria, or simply recast him quickly and moved on. Instead, they let one of their best characters gather dust for the better part of a decade.
Let's be honest, here. Apu's return won't fix what ails this show. I've rewatched the series on streaming as an adult, and it definitely loses much of its charm after nine or 10 seasons. By the mid-to-late teens, it gets unbearably awful. The show went woke, updated its animation, and just doesn't hack it anymore.
If you try to watch current episodes, they're almost unbearable, and the politics are only part of it. The voice actors who have been with the show since the '90s sound different. They're older and raspier, and the familiar voices that defined a generation of television are now almost painful to listen to. That's no knock on them personally. Time catches up to everyone.
It also tells you how long this show has overstayed its welcome.
Lasting comedy comes from people willing to offend someone. The Simpsons used to be fearless, and it should have been allowed to end while people still remembered it that way.
